Friday, March 31, 2006

The day before we flew from New York, the day we had about 20 much more important things to do, I took a taxi to the post office and mailed myself two boxes of books using "M bags." This obscure method is only for printed matter, and not all post office branches even have these magical bags. The post office took my boxes, threw them into Tyvek sacks, and then attached a label with a big M on it. It cost $60 to mail the two heavy boxes, so it was a steal. Because all the guidebooks say that Indian mail is unreliable, I decided to consider the postage gambling money more than a sure thing.

The books only took about a month to get to Bangalore from NYC, but for various reasons they bounced around to several different locations before turning up at Don's office this week. As you can see, the books I thought were good India choices are a mix of Penguin 60s, crime novels, and ginormous classics that I somehow never found the time to read in NYC. And self-improvement titles like "Get to Know Your 401(k)" and "Six-Figure Freelancing." Because there's nothing like one sunny day after another to make books like that irresistible. And of course some novels set in India, including Passage to India and Vikram Seth's enormous A Suitable Boy.

(For the record, I haven't had any trouble with things not arriving from the states, but aside from these books, I've only gotten personal mail. Our friend did have several things disappear between London and Bangalore, though.)